Menelaus.
Even the stories here had been rewritten to worship him.
The entrance was massive and gleaming, flanked by smooth white columns polished so bright they nearly burned the eye. I blinked against the glare, only to catch sight of the workers crouched at the base, their bodies bent low over buckets and brushes, their shoulders hunched. They scrubbed at the stone like they could wipe the land clean if they just tried hard enough.
Red dust suddenly swirled in from the east and drifted down like ash, coating everything in its path. It clung to the fresh polish and dulled the shine. The workers paused, just briefly, watching their labor vanish beneath the stain.
Not one of them said a word.
They dipped their brushes again, bent forward, and began to scrub. The exact same strokes. The exact same futility.
I couldn’t look away. Not from the workers, not from the brushes worn to frayed ends, not from the way their hands shook as they kept scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing. The red always came back. But they kept at it anyway, like maybe this time they’d be shown mercy. Maybe this time, the stain would stay gone.
It made something cold twist inside me.
Theokhèmarolled toward the palace entrance, wheels crunching over red-dusted stone. I leaned forward, bracing my hand against the cracked window as I stared out.
A line of guards stood waiting, statues masquerading as men. Their armor gleamed, sheened to a glassy shine that caught the light and threw it back in shards. Firelight on bronze. Their helmets rose in harsh crests, some black as crows’ wings, others red like raw meat. And on every shield—silver, striking, impossible to miss—was the sigil of the king: a thunderbolt split down the center, coiled by a serpent with its jaws open wide, devouring the lightning itself.
A symbol that once belonged to Zeus, now claimed and conquered by Menelaus.
The guards didn’t move as we passed. Their eyes were locked ahead like they weren’t seeing us at all—or worse, like they were. Like they saweverythingand simply deemed it unworthy of reaction. Their silence crawled over my skin.
They reminded me of my mother, so still, so distant, so sharp-edged in her quiet that you knew something was about to break.
And this place?
It was made to keep you breaking. Quietly. Elegantly. Forever.
My fingers curled into the fabric of my skirt. One of the soldiers twitched, just barely, and suddenly I was back in the square. Back in the crowd and the dust, watching the whip come down on Thalessa’s back.
The Hippeus there had stood just like that too. All red lacquer and empty eyes. Not men. Symbols. Statues with swords.
I felt it swell inside me like a cut split open. I looked at the soldiers now—thesesoldiers—and all I saw was a row of pointed blades pretending to be men.
I hated them.
I hated every polished inch of them. I hoped their armor seared their flesh beneath it. That the heat blistered their skin and made them scream.
The bile rose hot and fast, searing as it climbed. I swallowed hard, forcing it back down, refusing to flinch. My face didn’t move, not even a flicker, just as Calismae had taught me.
Theokhèmagroaned to a stop. Before it had even fully settled, my mother snapped upright across from me, her eyes slicing over my features, checking for flaws … like weakness.
“Do not speak unless spoken to once you step outside,” she said, low and firm, each word wrapped in steel.
I met her gaze. “I know what’s expected of me.”
She held my eyes a moment longer, then gave a single nod.
Without a word, her hands lifted and she drew her veil down over her face. The sheer fabric cloaked her expression, but not before I caught the flicker of something beneath it—fear, maybe. Or resolve sharpened into something colder.
I watched her disappear behind it, vanishing into the role she wore like a second skin, the grieving widow, draped in silence, molded from duty and loss.
My chest tightened. I drew in a deep breath just as the door beside me creaked open and the palace heat spilled in.
Grigorios stood just outside the door, his shoulders squared. He didn’t speak. He just looked at me—and nodded. A small gesture, but it was steadying.
Then he turned to my mother, bowing his head slightly before offering his hand.
